DFI Session Five- The Hypothetical Hub on sites.

During Gerhard's presentation about the Kaupapa of Share I learnt about the decision process which sat behind this. Using a a digital platform eventuated because Manaiakalani noticed that students wanted to share online through social media- so it made sense to allow them to share their learning online and provide an authentic audience
I never considered the types of audience we present to; Gerhard broke these down into two types of audiences.
Compulsory audience- one another,  assemblies, classmates, showing work to whānau. 
Authentic audience- choose to listen to what we have to share, can be anywhere in the world with internet access.

Manaiakalani choose Blogger carefully to ensure it was worthwhile and user friendly. Blogger allows external visitors to encourage learners rather than their work being placed in a book box under the desk just to me only viewed by the teacher or perhaps some other classmates.

We delved deeper into the world of sites today, even being given the opportunity to refine a site we already had. One problem with that... I don't have a site to refine. Jos was in the same boat so it looked like we were starting a fresh! So the Hypothetical Hub was born and we started to plan and form what was going to be a class website for a Hypothetical Hub that may form at Awapuni School. 

We explored complimentary colours and even choose a colour scheme for our new Hypothetical Hub thanks to Color palettes.

The process is underway and there is a fair journey ahead for the Hypothetical Hub yet but it has been great being able to put our learning into action. 

DFI Week Four- Dancing with Devices

Well, welcome to my one take Screen castify video about being Cybersmart! Screen castify allowed me to record myself as I awkwardly stumble through the Manaiaakalani Cybersmart website. Enjoy.




Today we had opportunities to explore both iPads and chromebooks! Often we ask our learners to work on these devices without knowing these devices ourselves.

iPads- I am able to see the benefit for these for younger children, but I must admit the time it must take to set up these iPads to be ready for learning would be rather substantial. I had a play on the Explain everything app, check out the video below! I love the evidence this would produce for the teacher. Take handwriting as an example, you are able to see how learners are forming their letters. The recording of the students can be saved in their drive and you are then able to get back to this video at a later stage.



Chromebooks- I have had experiences on chromebooks before, but it was very useful to look into keyboard shortcuts! My goal, for whenever I next have time is to create a visual poster with the most commonly used chromebook shortcuts! I think this aspect of the DFI would directly relate back to the classroom and would be so useful. We use technology day to day so we want to be able to use it as effectively and efficiently as we can. I know I have left this DFI with a few more shortcuts to add to be kete, such as the select all shortcut ( ctrl + A). 

We also explored all that Hapara- some points that I felt were a real asset of the dashboard; 
You can have custom folders at the top of the page, these must be done by the “manager"of Hapara at you school
You can view blog posts and comments from each learners blogs, in one handy click.  
Highlights page allows you to look at what each learner is currently working on, in real time.
Guided browsing-  you can set a guided learning activity and it means learners are only able to access this page/activity for whatever time you have allocated. 
Forgetting passwords, a event which I could imagine could be quite painful can easily be solved by the teacher, through Hapara. The teacher can reset any child's password if they have forgotten it. 
Also, being able to close tabs on students Chromebooks remotely! I could imagine you would get a few confused faces when a tab randomly disappears off a students Chromebook! 

Another week down and already looking forward to the next! 

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